Ok so I had a duck who sat on eggs for two weeks then decided she didn't want to any more, soI took them to a friend with chickens and we put them under a chook. Anyway it would have been 28 days this coming weekend, and today I was near my friends place, so stopped in, to check on the eggs, as previous eggs have been hatching early. Anyway out of the 4 viable eggs only one was still alive plus another egg was under the chook, but it was clearly not alive (liquid contents). So we went to where the chicken was on the egg, and my friend was picking it up and turned it over and I saw it and at first assumed it was dead. As there was a small hole in the egg on the side, not near where they would normally hatch. As I was opening my mouth to saw "awww no" my friend said, no hang on, i can feel it moving!" And sure enough we had a live wee duck in there. Had a quick pick at the spot where the hole was at first thinking for some reason it had pipped a hole in a strange spot. But quickly stopped as there were thick veins full of blood there. I could also see it looked like the membrane was very dried out and other ducklings I have seen like this couldn't hatch by themselves, so I decided I was going to take it home to hatch it (my friend had other chickens close to hatching multiple chicks so pinched another egg from one for her chook (so it will still get to be a mum) We went and candled it with my phone torch as I was going to put a hole in by the air space. Anyway straight away i could see the beak in the top of the egg. So I made a small hole carefully and started to pull away a little shell. Again I could see veins clearly still full of blood, and also signs of 'shrink wrapping'. So as I live about a 45 min drive from my friend, we put a hottie and a sheet in a box and made a nice little warm spot for the hatching duckling. On the way I had to stop at the supermarket for 5 mins to get a couple of things, and getting back in the car had another look at the wee ducky and it was really active and the veins seemed to already have dried up. After a careful picking at the egg, I saw the veins had indeed dried up. I haven't hatched my ducklings myself but the ones I have, it took hours and hours for veins full of blood to dry up, not 10 mins! Things had progressed where I could see that with e help of a wet towel from the supermarket rest room, I would be able to get the ducklings head out, and thinking I might be able to return it to the chook to finish off, I decided to help it to that point in the supermarket. As i as doing this I also noticed a small poo squashed in the egg on one side, which I haven't seen before and made me wonder how long the duckling had been trying to hatch. Anyway i got the ducklings head out and en saw what looked like a reasonable amount of yolk still outside the duckling, maybe 1/3 of the yolk? I carefully out the duckling back in the warm box, and had to adjust it a couple of times as it started really crying in distress and I figured I had inadvertently put stress on the area where the yolk was still outside and joined to the duckling. This happened a few times on the rest of the drive. Anyway got the duckling home and by then, 30 minutes later, it was really squirming trying to push itself out of the egg using its legs which were already out. I was trying to calm it and keep it in the egg imagining there was still a lot of yolk there. Then I had a look in, and there was a small sac full of faeces, but no yolk at all. I am. sure I did not mistake the faeces for yolk earlier, as they were, well faeces coloured, and the yolk looked yellow and like a yolk. In my (admittedly limited) ducklings with veins like this one had at first look have taken a good 8-12 hrs to dry enough to be helped out. And the one duckling zi have hatched with yolk outside, had less than this one and it took a good12-18 hrs to absorb and then another 1-2 days for the vent to shrink and some inflammation around the vent to resolve. At this point I was easily able to remove the bag of faeces, from the duckling.n it still had a very red and swollen vent at that point. It was distressed so I offered it some water with sugar which it eagerly drank. And for the next few hrs it has had little bit of a mix of water and jellymeat every half hr or so and eaten eagerly. After about an hr, the very enlarged and swollen vent was at a normal size and appearance for a newly hatched duckling (that had no complications). I looked at the egg shell after and it had like a little blood blister inside it where it had been broken. That was no where near the ducklings beak, and I am pretty certain that something happened to break the egg a few days early, and assuming this kicked off the hatching process a little early. Anyway, just wondering if anyone else has had a duckling seemingly progress this fast? Ie from veins full of blood in about 10-15 mins and from 1/3 yolk outside the duckling to all the yolk absorbed in about 30-45 mins?
I do not have experience with hatching ducklings, but I have had chicks and guineas that I have checked on and they had full veins and yolk and then when I check back a couple hours later they are ready to pop out. I can say for sure that I have seen blood absorbed within a half hour but I can't say for sure about yolk since usually I go busy myself with something else to keep me from messing with them and when I check back the yolk is absorbed. I have also seen yolk that is a grayish greenish color in some areas and my thought was that perhaps there was a mild amount of bacteria in the egg but not enough to get out of hand/
